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Friday, 27 February 2015

Several things in this
world annoy you to an extent but nothing compares to the amount of frustration
you feel when a clothing store has a NO-RETURN policy! Ugh! Numerous brands
here in Saudi Arabia have a strict policy of not having any items returned so if
the dress doesn’t fit you or the color doesn’t suit you, you are bound to keep
it in your closet forever and look at it every day with deep regret. Some
brands do exist in this country which allows the return policy however that too
within a three day time period only.

The reason why women
mostly find this policy unreasonable is because firstly, women in Saudi cannot
drive. So dragging your husband back and forth to the shopping center for a
return takes a lot of hard work as most husbands are never in favor of
shopping. Getting yourself to the mall for a female in Saudi is nothing less
than a challenging mission. If good luck is with you, you might have a driver
who can easily take you to the mall again and again. So yes, even if a woman
here DOES find a way of getting to the mall, she just have three days to do so
which involve terrible traffic in between and pointless store timings. No one’s
ever sure of store timings here as they usually shut down very often because of
the prayer timings.

There is another major
problem here which leads to the no-return policy being difficult. Shops for
women here have no trial rooms at all. So basically, they can just select an
item off the rack and blindly trust its size and color because trying it is
simply not an option. Trial rooms are forbidden in Saudi because of reasons
such as male salesmen with a filthy mind might take an advantage of it or a
reason that women should never get unclothed when they are out of their home.

The solution to this is either to go home and try or to purchase the items, go
to the mall’s restroom and try all the clothes there one by one. Trying in the
restroom is just another hassle as not every woman has enough time to stay in
the mall nor do they have such patient husbands who would wait for them to try
several clothes in there. Waiting to try it at home is ALSO a major hassle as
women have to schedule their entire day according to the store timings.

Raised in America since
the start, I have always been used to the easy shopping way where I could try
on clothes and take them home and if I changed my mind, I could easily return
them since they have a long period of time available for exchange or return and
I could also go there by my own car, causing no hassle to anyone else. Stores in
Saudi just take advantage of women here by not letting them take part in easy
shopping however there is a new policy in the country that only women can sell
lingerie now. So you don’t have to worry about buying them from a salesman now.
But they still need to work on this unfair policy for the ease of customers!